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28DL Full Member

Back in April I wrote a report based on a visit to the ‘Park-Monument of the Bulgarian-Soviet Friendship’ on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast. This time, I went back for another look –*and managed to find a way inside the network of bomb shelters hidden beneath the monument itself.

It took a while to find the entrance, half hidden as it was. Across the metal hatch, the phrase “entry strictly forbidden” is painted in Bulgarian.

While the tunnels inside have been completed stripped of furniture, I was impressed at how many features had been left in place. Abandoned sites in Bulgaria tend to get stripped very quickly, as homeless people and gypsies trade the metal for scrap money... here however, light switches, electrical fittings, metal ducts and pipes were scattered around the entire network of tunnels.

It looks as though a few heavier items had been abandoned in corridors, when looters realised they couldn't carry them any further, or fit them through the narrow doorways.

From the entrance passage the tunnel split in two - on the right was an old boiler room, while the left-hand passage led into a vast network of criss-crossed tunnels. Most of these corridors were built from large concrete cylinders, creating a slightly unsettling echo as we walked around the complex.

I was really surprised at just how large the site was - there would have been enough room for a small village down here, and easily enough space to evacuate top brass and their families in the case of all-out war. On either side of the main passages there were chambers and rooms which looked as though they had been used for storage, mess halls, offices and dormitories... as well as several clusters of toilets, and even one tiled room with a drain in the centre of the floor which looked as though it had once been a communal shower.

In a couple of places there were shafts that led back up to the floor above - which contained the soviet propaganda centre I explored on my last visit. I tried climbing up one of these narrow pipes, but many of the iron rungs set into the concrete walls were falling apart from rust... and I didn't get far before I realised that trying to get to the top would have been a suicide mission.

All in all, a good explore - the tunnels were long enough that it took several hours to make our way around the whole subterranean complex, and even then there were some turnings and passages we hadn't explored... a good excuse for another visit!